the pussy riot appeal gets underway at moscow city court and received two years in jail for a publicity stunt in russia's main cathedral. a fierce reception for chancellor angela merkel during her visit to greece with tens of thousands of protesters pointing to her as the source of their economic misery. and israeli prime minister netanyahu appears to go all out for reelection as he orders a snap poll at the peak of his popularity citing budget.

thank you for joining our team this wednesday with me. well moscow city court has started hearing an appeal by the pussy riot punk band sentenced to two years in jail for a performance in the country's main orthodox cathedral. is out the court for us. plenty of people gathered outside the court as we speak the appeal hearing take two of the puts you right appeal hearing is taking place inside the court room lots of press there was supporters opus the right critics of pussy riot that were scorched had outside of the grounds of the court room and what's happened now the developments inside the courtroom is that one of the band members you could see in this some would say that she's requested a new lawyer and that lawyer has now spoken out and has said this band member didn't even enter the stadium back in february during this thread that the women

were arrested for and that's why her sentence needs to be reduced the remaining two band members have said that they're sorry for offending anybody they didn't mean to offend anybody that their protest was purely political but there is some. while observers and legal experts say that. the remaining. members rather than reducing the women sentences they get. around the now. brand. report pussy riot feminist punk rock has registered trademark a brand. one major russian. says they've been flooded with calls from foreign promoter has organized a. tour that could fetch up to six hundred million euros.

over the oscars red square behind me the post the riot stormed the area and performed an offensive song about. a warm up sorts but that particular stunt didn't bring the punk rockers the big break that they were off the internet in the tension on the internet and more importantly failed to rouse the interest of the forest just weeks later kirsty riot took their protest starts to. the stunning video went viral. were arrested the trial a worldwide media circus western and russian celebrities forced the women's release . international branded them prisoners of conscience and free pussy riot t. shirts sold out the pushing it was quite normal that's the way you attract attention they always look that famous pop stars around the world look at the way but dressed. look at all the. well we can do as well as that or we could do

something different. in the idea of going into the cathedral. because that. would in fact be something. chairing the trial somewhat struck by the . women's defense teams tactics. there is no defense in this case it's simple p.r. . they're working towards the brand in order to capitalize on it in the future and it's worked i think two years in prison for the crime they committed is too harsh but at the same time i can see that their lawyers did everything in order to get them two years in prison you've missed the bonds appeal against the sentences is perspire and in a moscow court last week one band member to reno some but she said it unexpectedly announced she now wants different lawyers from her fellow band members to a trial observer believes it signals a rift among the punk rock collective prosecutors say the dissenting band member is

merely a ploy to add hype to a story that's not generating the headlines it did with the concept requests pouring in there are those that say that pussy riot horse appeal is just like the trial that proceeded it the point here isn't to reduce the winning sentences but rather it's about increasing the number of us headlines and the saleability of the now protected pussy riot brand. mosque. watching the pussy riot case closely at our two dark home you can find me live transmission of the appeal hearing the full time one of the cases also there for you. to ride us and far from warm welcome for from the greek people to a chancellor angela merkel on her visit while the german leader praised the government over its austerity measures an army of riot police held back tens of thousands of demonstrators just streets away r.t.

sara first now reports from athens on why merkel's visit so infuriated the people. it was supposed to be a conciliatory gesture but in the end do you need to serve to add fuel to the fire of austerity anger. breaking out between the riot police on the protesters on the street that they're going on. the country it was supposed to demonstrate solidarity but all it if i like the divisions there remain in the country itself between the people and the politicians and between the eurozone countries as well the bad blows between greece and germany runs deep greece largely blames germany for the tough measures they faced this seen them called in devastating economic spiral and their journeys rhetoric may have softened recently weeks of nights i think given forgotten their portrayal of the start of the crisis the bad one isn't

the bunch of very good. government. people the people are suffering only. jobs. for the working people of large chunks of the greek population looking increasingly isolated from the political class they're far from alone from greece to spain to italy staring to his poor year is an economy to their knees and with. particularly amongst year is east now reaching epic heights people simply had enough at first looks like a familiar sight because it is one we think many times before in recent years. with tense standoff between the riot police and protesters. along the streets and people standing around this is the result of years of austerity this is one

of thirty means in real terms a population that is being pushed to its breaking point you can see all of the side streets of these pants standoff happening perhaps this will be the wake up call to eurozone leaders as the crisis drags on and the protests are growing larger and more frequent where there were one schools to ease the pain of the cuts now many people simply want out altogether you have to leave or you have to have to break with. generally we have to break with the system but before people have to break with companies to be important think is not so much resistance it's not only the burden on the people. it's has been three years of history of you know three years of general strikes and education. and we're going to go like that so r.t. athens. this a sociology lecturer from the university of the aegean says they're not even merkel

support will give a shaky greek government all that much stability. the fifth year of recession we're in the third year well stare at the measures they're asking us for even harder austerity measures this a thirteen billion cuts mainly in what concerns wages and pensions so people are really really angry and i think that there's also a lot of anger against mrs merkel who is being seen as a representative of the less said some form of the konami a gratian against greece or this protest and think no one talks that ok mrs merkel comes here so things are going to be better and i think that the situation is not very stable despite all this attempt even by mrs merkel to sell some form of support to mr prime minister some of us in the reality the greek government is not so stable since it is sitting on talk of a huge social crisis as

a huge social crisis i can easily turn into a political crisis. israelis are to head to the polls at rather some. months earlier than expected as prime minister benjamin netanyahu has announced a snap election he said the coalition's failure to nail down the budget is behind the ranch polls are expected to be held at the end of january or the beginning of february which gives less time for netanyahu as potential rivals to strengthen their platforms also comes just ahead of the us presidential election the outcome of which according to some middle east experts will have a major impact on israel's politics. is taking advantage of situation in the budget is. that to pass a budget is difficult but you could have done it but this is the best time for response to view because the coalition today in israel is in shambles as so he catches actually a moment in which from his point of view within three months he will end and he can

make a huge victorious i think these here another element the element before bomb is. has actually linked himself almost totally to much involvement in the american elections in favor of reform is an old friend of the time you know the holding similar conservative positions and they all in all his relations with obama are very sour i believe that if obama would be elected this will become also an issue in the elections and i will not meet a possibility in wish obama in direct way would also try to influence the elections in this world. meanwhile in the u.s. reports uncover more of mitt romney's sharp business practices the straight republican nominee who only smoked one cigarette in his life apparently had no problem with pushing millions of them on others if it meant good business. and yes or no scottish independence inches closer to reality with london and i don't borrow

all but agreeing on a referendum. in the middle of russia's north from away from civilization and if we are one helicopter treat from the nearest village. they still one family have been living here for a long time in tents made of reindeer skins. lodging

runs in ada signal and then it's they also grew up in the to draw but left it at the age of six and never returned they now live in the city in apartment building but still room and they are regions. was planted here as a dancing teacher. was. next to his dance is he tells the stories about his motherland. laws in europe to now has a one thousand strong rangy had when the enemy only saw the light can and most around it is gather the tens and move to another pasha they travel hundreds of kilometers in winter women and children for them. but the two families have less of

a chance to come across each other they belong to different worlds even though there's sometimes a similar. wealthy british style guide. but i was. coming. out of the. market why not this kind of. find out what's really happening to the global economy with mike's cars or there are no holds barred look at the globe. financial headlines june into cars a report. even in the autumn of the year.

it's never too late to start. extreme paragliding. been shit. or become a. welcome to our team with me and tara laura publican how many mitt romney has taken a slight lead in the polls ahead of the second u.s. presidential debate previously romney stated that he considers russia to be one of america's principal rivals but it seems that his business history that foster tobacco addiction there makes trading with the enemy ok. as the story.

today's mitt romney views russia as america's number one geopolitical foe i don't know what views mr romney had on russia twenty years ago but we do know that back then he did his best to get russia to smoke more so some twenty years ago he's a boston based consulting firm bain capital was helping tobacco titans to move forcefully into the new russian market the soviet union just collapsed to russia was up for grabs according to the person who worked for romney in russia at the time someone named. hope i pronounce his name correctly romney was very excited about the smoking market in russia mr garstang and he reported to mitt romney directly about his efforts to promote smoking there in the one nine hundred ninety s. tobacco market in iraq it which of course led to more smoking related deaths and candidate romney has apparently made his modest very modest contribution to that but obviously for him it was more about money than anything else just business even if it killed by the way mitt romney himself never smoked except for the one cigarette

he said he had when he was very young he explained his attitude to smoking saying it's a religious thing mr romney is a mormon and mormons have a strict health code but apparently his beliefs his faith never stopped him from pushing cigarettes onto the nation he refers to as a foe in washington i'm going to check out. bigger is not always better at least for american police the department of homeland security field tests smaller versions of battle drones are there stretching a legal limits of spying on u.s. citizens. a deal allowing scotland to hold a referendum on independence from the u.k. in two thousand and fourteen has been all but confirmed it's believed it will come down to a simple yes or no vote separation the scottish parliament is expected to exercise control over the vote but can now cross to alan smith a member of the european parliament for the scottish national party who joins us live from brussels thank you so much alan for joining our team now scotland already

has substantial autonomy with its own parliament and the union has existed for centuries with relative success why fix something now that isn't broken well or proposition would be that it is broken and it's not working for the people of scotland and we could do better resenting ourselves as a small prosperous northern europe we're surrounded by the likes of norway and denmark and others we think we could do better in a country of five million people with a much more direct democracy is going to produce delivered it's done well what we want to do is to complete the process and give the normal course of a normal independent state within the european union independent now one recent opinion poll suggested that the no vote is enjoying a massive twenty five percent lead if that's the case how realistic is the independents project. well those were various pools of sort of various things and what this debate is doing is that the beatles go in there looking at independents

as a realistic prospect for many people actually for the first time in their lives that it's always been something that they quite like the review like being scottish would produce a very very clear in our identity of the political question the constitutional question was always a little bit hazy for some people you know essentially firmly on the agenda we are into a referendum in twenty forty we need to kick the tires and make sure that we want to buy the car and people are looking at independence day that never have to do before we get two years to have the very energising discussions of the we should decisions be made in the modern world we are part of the wider framework of the european union some things are dealt with based on a bigger framework and that's fine and some things are best dealt with much closer to home in a country of five million people will have a more direct reflective democracy than a bigger country where the westminster parliament on thornley the view doesn't serve him with well much less my comfort that alan many people believe that the crucial issue in all this is the economy there is sometimes a perception that scotland would be actually worse off if it went it alone what it

. well it was almost people who don't understand the issue certainly the scope isn't more to the u.k. than we get back to the u.k. pleasing move to the e.u. than we get back at this is something that really has been proven by official u.k. treasury statistics you don't need to believe me it's there for all to see we've got oil with gas we've got a healthy financial sector it's had its problems but it remains very much part of this go to the economy going forward we've got renewable energy we've got whiskey with good food production sector which is booming at the moment we've got a lot so good stuff going on we will be more prosperous independent national are still the program reason for doing it there's a lot of reasons all of which point to a much more direct democracy a reflective democracy the psychological shortly on of we're no running our own affairs and we've got to make our own decisions but there's no question scotland will do better economically independent power i'd live from brussels alan smith member of the european parliament for the scottish national party thank you. us

police may soon employ the same drone technology which the army uses to attack targets are brought only be downsized version the department of homeland security has tested smaller unmanned aircraft to be used for surveillance as part of a public safety program amy step on all of it from the electronic privacy information center says this may practically to lift the legal limits of domestic spying. and there are no laws out there right now that protect privacy from the use of drones and as this technology gets more available the police will be able to do more and more with the d.h. s. will be able to do more and more with it without needing a warrant so we're entering an age where everything that we do even possibly down the road in our own homes could be subject to unwarranted police surveillance so there are police departments that have expressed interest in having rubber bullets having tear gas possibly having deadly weapons on the drums in the future they are

able to target surveillance targets better too so if some they want to keep an eye on a suspected criminal or maybe even just somebody who may have gone to a protest they're able to do that much more efficiently. time for a business update with marina so russia it seems is pitching its ambitious oil plans in london from what i understand that's exactly right karin the man who's there and that is alexander novak the country's energy minister and what he's trying to do he's meeting with international investors he wants to get one the trillion dollars worth of investment into the energy sector by twenty twenty an artsy caught up with them exclusively and he told us what the tax incentives are that will help boost production. first of all we've created a set of stimulating measures to boost the development of new all deposits in siberia secondly for the existence of those it's profitable under the current tax system with can't be exposed to explain five percent on top of that we will take

steps to stimulate drilling of hard to reach reserves on the shelf. and a quick look at the markets will start to where the europe or the sentiment is pretty much negative as you can see there by those red dieters the footsie is setting over half a percent the german dax slightly behind there and the concerns are growth or life they're all vince spain and greece at the moment if we move on and like a look at the markets here in russia they're of course tracking losses overseas this is also ahead of earnings from boards which investors are always looking at and if they're a negative the fact the markets quite a bit the r.t.s. are shouting over half a percent somebody with the my sense but when it comes to the russian market prices also have in the five and this hour they have actually ball drop into negative territory coming down from the one that we call i and that's as we're expecting to get a report that shows us stockpiles are on the rise in the u.s. there was biggest producer now let's take a quick look at currencies what's happening there when it comes to the euro it is

still weak in the against the u.s. dollar the ruble makes picture this hour it is losing the against the greenback and when it comes to the euro it's gained against that and this is what we have time for this hour for now back to you carol all right thank you maria. now coming up our t. talks to andy greenberg from forbes magazine says that despite the u.s. war in whistleblowers truth out of advocacy is on the rise. the chance to be soo much brighter if you knew about sums from funds to pressure.

these from stunts on t.v. dot com. you know how sometimes you see a story and it seems so for like you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else you hear or see some other part of it and realize that everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm trying hard welcome to the big picture. comes.

culture is that so much of a given to each musician to find the mark left syria some more within and the deadly reality of seeing this conflict spill over into the entire region because much of the blame for the current. more news today is once again flared up. these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada. trying to look for a shelter on the day. good lumber tour. was to build the world's most sophisticated radios which

doesn't sound anything. to teach me why you should care about. this is why you should care only on. this machine kills secrets is the title of a new book that chronicles the history and future of information leaks ranging from

the pentagon papers to wiki leaks and beyond r.t. is now sitting down with the author andy greenberg who is also a reporter for forbes magazine welcome and it's a pleasure in your book you introduce readers to the inside world of hacktivists cypherpunks and digital activists such as wiki leaks founder julian assange and you came to the conclusion that in the twenty first century the world should grow used to more whistleblowers like bradley manning and more groups like wiki leaks why is that while there i met with julian songs in two thousand and ten and it's you know the time it seems to me that he was he sort of made it seem so easy to delete these massive trolls of secret documents but i i i think the rest of the media didn't understand how this was possible where did this come. izzy's some kind of just genius singularity or did it come out of some larger tradition or is it the technology that he used so i i went on this kind of you have the quest to trace the

ideas behind wiki leaks and then just you know once a sort of found the tradition that a song comes out of which is the safer punks a group that's been around since the mid ninety's who have always dreamed of using encryption to to take power from the government and give it to individuals i conceded that he was actually using technologies that are freely available that have been developing for decades and when you see that you have to wonder who is going to use those technologies next it's not if this isn't all just about julia songe and it's actually a movement that's been developing for decades then it seems inevitable that it's going to keep evolving and then we're going to have another wiki leaks another manning and maybe another songe you traveled around the world to understand the ins and outs of the hacking community you were tracking cypherpunks and you also spoke to members of other groups such.